Legacy of Kain: Insurrection
by Kojiokida2
Summary: The future of Nosgoth hangs the balance. Between the Hylden in the east, the Humans in the west and the Vampires in the north the balance of power is already precarious. Now the Divus began their gambit for their endgame, the so called 'promised day'. With Kain absent only Janos Audron can rise to defeat them but as they are followers of his own God, would he want to? chapter 2 up
1. Prologue

(Hi there. Time to get back into the Legacy of Kain story that so many people have assured me is the **_'Byst 1 evah'_** as I've left you people hanging for quite a bit now. That not due to my having personal problems this time but rather due to a combination of art projects, a business venture and Skyrim. Now - a few things to state. I said that Insurrection and Equinox would be coming out around the same time. Well that concept has changed after I realised I was about to make a horrible mistake. Equinox will now be the last story in my little series and something else will come out in a little bit alongside Insurrection. What is it you may ask? Not telling you - you'll just have to wait and see. Secondly - this prologue and chapter one are being released ahead of schedule so the next chapters will be coming along in a little while. My editor is incommunicado at the moment so they will also be a few spelling and graphical errors until I can get them corrected so bare with me. **_(I also like to do a little cover with my stories and...that'll come along in a bit too - blame Skyrim for that one. I'll get on that right away)_**

Thirdly - like I said before. I will NOT be using any lore elements from Nosgoth in this story. I don't like its lore at all and I couldn't add it even if I wanted to, it would hurt the overall experience of this story. Each and every instalment of this series has been written with "what would Amy Henning do?" in mind. Obviously resurrecting Raziel wasn't one of them but I like to think I tried to match her idealism for the writing. Using Nosgoth's lore would detract from that mission.

But enough for the forewords - on with the show!

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_"What is the measure of a man? By what criteria is a soul judged worthy of mere existence? What must one do in order to be dubbed worthwhile? And who would do the dubbing? For eons I thought the answers to such questions were mine, a secure and reassuring knowledge and certainty. Now I wonder how I could ever have been so hopelessly naive. I am adrift with no port, no safe harbour. I find that of all the questions burning my aged soul, one flames brightest._

_Which drives me; Duty or Faith?"_

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**Legacy of Kain: INSURRECTION**

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The sky was near pitch black, impenetrable as night itself but far less gentle. The clouds were nearly all smog, rising from the fires of war which raged across the land from one end of Nosgoth to the other. These fires burned near perpetually, fed by the bodies of the fallen which fell or were even cast into them. Hungry for more, the fires burned on, awaiting the carnage to bring them their next eagerly awaited meal.

Staring out to the far east from the terrace of the Citadel, Ba'al Zebur could not even see the sun rising. There was perhaps a brighter spot in that general direction, but it was lost amongst the light from the fires raging to the north where the attack was pressed on the Hylden defences in the mountains. The gloom was so impenetrable that it was impossible to see anything in detail at a distance. Placing both hands on the marble banister before him, his talons tense across the smooth surface, he sighed audibly.

Like all of his kind, Ba'al's skin was a dull blue and his eyes were a bright yellow, nearly gold in colour. He had talons instead of fingers and toes on his hands and feet and out from his back sprouted the large, black feathered wings which gave his race the advantage in the war they raged with their enemies. But he was marked with the signs of both age and too many cares, his hair grey and his feathers becoming dull and frayed around the edges. His hair was tied back and he had a short cropped beard over his chin.

He wore a red toga-like garment open at the back to allow his wings the best freedom of movement, tied around his waist with a sash of white silk into which elaborate patterns had been stitched with golden and silver thread. Around his neck he wore the symbol of his office, a medallion of platinum onto which was engraved the ancient symbol for Balance - the axis of all things.

He was Ba'al Zebur, the Lord on High and ruler of the Vampire race, commander of their legions of flying warriors and guide to his people. But here, right now, it was clear that he felt his authority lacking where it was most sorely needed.

"It's hard to believe, isn't it"? He asked of his companion after a moment; a figure standing behind him in the shelter of the archway into the chambers of the High Circle.

"What is?" His companion asked, coming forward with his arms folded inside the sleeves of his white, almost ecclesiastical robe. His garment was simpler then the bright colours worn by his ruler. While he was fortunate and privileged enough to be called a friend by his lord, he himself was not of high station. He was one of the priests of the Temple of the Oracle and this required him to dress in the garb common to this caste.

He was somewhat taller than Ba'al with hair tied back long behind his head. His features were certainly tighter than his ruler's with higher cheekbones.

"How long this struggle has been going on." Ba'al clarified, gesturing with one hand out toward the fierce glow of the fires. From here it looked almost as if the mountains were the crux of some colossal forge being heated from below; outlined in red, yellow, and gold. The occasional rupture of flame almost seemed like the blow of a hammer from some titanic blacksmith. "Over a thousand years according to the Chroniclers. A millennium of war."

His face set into grim lines, the Lord on High turned his back on the sight and his wings spread out wide in one sudden flourish to clear from his shoulders the thin covering of soot which had fallen onto him during that time. "There are generations of Humans who have grown up not knowing anything but this struggle." He continued in flat apathy and weariness. "For them it's a fact of life, like the rising and setting of the sun each day. They would find the absence of the carnage more upsetting than its presence." His companion did not seem concerned about the seemingly defeatist and clearly jaded attitude of his ruler. He had heard such sentiment before.

"It is the long holy struggle against those who do not accept the cosmic order." He replied simply and with quiet conviction. "The divine call of God Himself." Ba'al half turned at this and gave his old friend a look. It was certainly a sad one but with a twist of wry amusement, his lip turned up on the left-hand side of his face.

"It would have to be." He said sardonically. "To spend a millennium in war otherwise could only be called utter madness." Then he walked past his companion and into the vaulted marble and basalt corridor beyond, leaving behind the gloom of the outside for the halls of the Citadel lit by the bright glow of eldritch energy captured within the hearts of receptive gemstones and set into niches on the wall.

Trailing along behind him, Ba'al's companion frowned at the body language of his ruler. While it was no secret Ba'al was not as firm in his religious convictions as many others and had become disheartened at the cost of the holy war, it was unlike him to be so physically worn down. He looked for all the world like a man who has just walked five hundred miles and was faced with the prospect of walking five hundred more.

"My lord, take solace in the fact that if your plan succeeds, the war will be over." He said as consolingly as possible, stepping forward quickly to walk beside his ruler. At this remark, Ba'al came to a sudden halt and gave him an incredulous and astonished look.

"Over?" The Lord on High repeated, clearly perplexed. Seeing that his companion did not understand what was so astonishing, he rolled his eyes. "Oh, my friend, I wish I could pretend that was true." He ran one hand over his face and then began down along the hallway once more. "The war might be postponed for centuries, but over? Hardly." He added, his voice echoing down the expanse towards the chamber into which he strode. Frowning now in real confusion, for this was the first he had heard of such sentiments, his companion followed quickly.

"My lord, I am afraid I do not understand." He admitted.

The chamber into which they strode was a large, round space. On the curving walls murals depicting both the history of their people and the chronicled exploits of various Divus saints had been delicately and painstakingly constructed in bright colours. Set in the centre of the chamber was a large, round stone table with nine large stone seats set in a ring around it.

Standing by the table was another of their race. He was taller than either of them with massive, powerfully built shoulders and upper back into his wing muscles. With so much bulging muscle he looked very much like he could rip a man down the middle with his bare hands. Oddly, he had a large black moustache running down either side of his chin. Facial hair, while not uncommon in Vampires, was often kept small or close cropped. But this one wore his larger facial adornment with fierce and even challenging pride, as if daring anyone to make an issue of his divergence from tradition.

He wore a simple toga of white but over this he had steel armour shielding his right arm and hand. It looked less like it was for protection and more for reinforcement. There were burn marks, old and new, over his torso in many places which showed he was a smith. There was no doubt that he was Serioli - one of the heretic army, apostates who did not acknowledge the authority of the true God but whose skill with elemental forging were simply too necessary for the war effort to be done away with. So long as they did not voice their heretical scepticism openly, then their presence amongst the ranks of the faithful was tolerated.

"You wouldn't understand. Certainly not yet." Ba'al said, walking directly towards their visitor with sudden purpose. Without a word of greeting the Serioli smith stepped aside and revealed a large set of manuscripts laid out on the table. The designs upon them, nine lancing shafts and the base that connected them to the earth and sky were laid out in meticulous detail. Even on parchment there was something undeniably implacable about those pillars, their mere image radiating a sense of awe-inspiring power.

"The Pillars certainly seem an impressive concept..." The Lord on High continued solemnly as he gazed over them, tracing the outline of the central shaft with one talon. "...but ultimately this set... They're just a means of buying time." Looking at the designs along with him, his companion let his gaze wander across the markers down the sides of the diagrams denoting how each Pillar functioned and their role in maintaining the whole. It was a complex, arcane construction that went far beyond his understanding. But he knew enough to appreciate the mastery of power and magic that went into the mere thought process.

"Buying time until what?" He asked instead. Ba'al's face suddenly broke into a wide grin, giving him an almost boyish look.

"Would you believe me if I said I wasn't entirely certain?" His companion's face did not change expression even slightly.

"No." He said.

The simple reply made the Lord on High burst out laughing. Placing both hands on the table he took a moment to recover from his mirth.

"Your confidence in my omnipotence is quite touching." He said and for the first time today he sounded actually happy. Fondly he patted his friend's shoulder "I envy your childlike view of the world, Janos. It must be touching to view the world in black and white." Then he blinked and clicked his talons.

"Although that reminds me." He said and now he looked really pleased. "I heard your consort has journeyed to the rookery. I hope congratulations aren't premature."


	2. The Prisoner Enigma

(Note - General Skelim is a character belonging to G0RELORD and is featured in his excellent fanfiction, Soul Reaver a Novelisation.)

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**_"Dragged, inch by protesting inch, I found myself pulled up out of my daydreams of a happier time to the stark, blistering evil of the present. I did not want to return. I wanted to remain in my nostalgic fantasy, but that observation of myself was more disturbing."_**

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As his body roused from the deep black oblivion of feverish sleep it had plunged into, Janos Audron drew in a sharp and shuddering breath. His body ached and stung from both lack of blood and the physical abuse it had taken. The shackles locked around his wrists dug painfully into his flesh, keeping his arms raised uncomfortably about his head. The restraints around his ankles were even more constricting, bending his legs back to leave him prostrated on the grimy floor and unable to move.

The cuts down his left-hand side, dagger and sword marks, were only thinly healed and the flesh under his skin around the scars had turned purple and black. Jammed in his mouth, keeping his fangs protruded and his tongue painfully dry was a piece of rope tied to a thick leather collar around his neck. It made speech above an inarticulate grunt impossible.

Clad only in the filthiest of rag coverings that was a shred away from being indecent, he hung there helpless and alone.

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**_"I awoke to discover myself a prisoner, chained, bound, and gagged. How did I come to be here? I did not remember."_**

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His mind was foggy, disjointed, and what happened before arriving in this place was fragmented. He remembered flying away, perhaps foolishly, from the Serioli fortified position. There had been a Hylden there he was sure, the one who had finally developed their wings. He had confronted that one and Ajatar Cadre, the Serioli leader, but...after that he could remember nothing with any certainty. Whatever images that flashed in his mind were dark and foreboding but misty and indistinct. He could not be sure what was actual memory and what was produced by feverish nightmare.

Prying his eyes open at the sharp prodding to his right, the light from a burning torch stung them painfully and he turned his head away. As he did a metal rimmed boot kicked him in the side with vindictive force. Whatever breath had been left in his lugs whooshed out of him and he coughed, struggling and wheezing for air.

"By God, look ah it." A rough, grizzled and accented Human voice remarked from somewhere amongst the figures standing around him. "If I ain't seen the fangs and there weren't dem records of those Razielim things, I'd have mistake this blighter for an angel." Someone else snorted derisively at the observation.

"Don't let the priests hear you say that." A second voice, more well-spoken than the first, replied with a warning tone. "You compare a Vampire to an angel they'll have you excommunicated."

"Well look at dem wings, what else am I supposed to thing when I see those?" The first speaker asked, sounding a bit defensive. Janos opened one eye. There were four of them standing over and around him in the large circular cell into which he had been thrown.

The room had a low ceiling and directly in the centre of the floor was a thick iron grate over an entrance into some sort of sewage system. Dirt, filth, decades old excrement was piled up in small mounds across the chamber with a scattering of bones around as if for added decoration. A skull, still with rotting flesh attached to it, revealed that the bones were Human.

The air around him was thick and humid, suffocating and the stench of it was nauseating. It smelt of death, decay, stagnant water, and dozens of other unwholesome things he could not name. Distant, beyond the walls of the cell there came the sobbing cries of those in pain and the deranged gibbering mutters of the even more pitiable; the insane.

The Human carrying the torch leaned in closer and Janos could see the man's dull brown eyes through the silts of a brown leather mask under a protective steel helmet. He was dressed in armour of the same kind, leather with reinforcing metal. He carried an arrangement of daggers, sheers, and knives in sleeves down the outsides of his thighs.

"Over the centuries there are records of the Vampires changing into hideous parodies of insects, fish, and beasts." He said, his voice muffled by the cowl stitched into the mask. His gaze wandered up and down Janos' helpless body, noting everything about his anatomy, especially the large, black feathered wings. "But never anything like this."

"You are certain it's a Vampire?" A third asked, standing off to one side. He was dressed in that same leather and steel armour combination but he carried a large crossbow with a quiver of bolts strapped to his belt at his left-hand side.

Janos' jaw was seized roughly by the one Human with the torch directly before him and his head turned from side to side so all around him could see the fangs forced to protrude from his lips, very much like how a farmer might examine his livestock for signs of infection.

"Yeah, I'd say so." The Human remarked sardonically. He let Janos' head drop and stood back up. "The General and the council will want to question it."

"It can talk, right?" Another Human asked dubiously, a little too far from the light of the torch for the captive Vampire to see his features.

"Why do you think we gagged it?" The first asked, passing the torch to another Human while he began to open a leather pouch attached to his right leg. "It wouldn't stop raving when it was brought in." From out of the pouch the Human produced a metallic object, glinting harshly in the light of the torch. At first Janos thought it was a dagger or knife. But as the Human came closer still he saw in fact it was a large pair of sheers. "And since we don't want it flying away on us..."

What happened next was not painful. It was not even physically uncomfortable. Mentally, however, it was the worst torture that could have ever been conceived. One by one, each of the long black feathers of Janos' wings were clipped. His eyes bulging in horror, the Ancient Vampire struggled violently and tried to cry out. But the chains held him fast and he was still weak from lack of nourishment.

Desperately he tried to cry out, to beg them not to do this to him but his throat was too dry and the gag thrust through his mouth only allowed him to make a few gurgling moans. The ability to fly was a central and fundamental part of his people, built into their very sense of identity. To have it taken away went beyond mere disfigurement; it was robbing the victim of the ability to be what they were. It was to make them nothing in both their own eyes and others'. Even the Hylden, when he had been their prisoner, even they had not done such heinous and abhorrent an act.

The Humans merely held him down with their feet if he writhed too much, allowing their comrade to continue his horrid work. For the first time in centuries Janos felt tears of shame and horror course down his face. As the final sheering was complete, his body collapsed back down to the ground. Huddling in on himself as much as the chains would allow, he wept in a small, broken heap on that filthy floor. The sense of utter violation a living thing throughout his entire being. The feathers would grow back once he had fed enough to fully heal but here, in this place, he would forever be denied such nourishment. The Human who had disfigured him so kicked him one in the side as he replaced his sheers.

"Crying, Vampire?" He asked, looking down with disgust. "You didn't like that?" As if the crying was the worst part, he kicked the prone Vampire again with more force. "Well, fuck you, leech! After what you blood sucking bastards have done to us, you don't get to cry when we visit the misery back on you!"

"That's enough." The one Human figure at the back who hadn't moved through all of this said sharply, turning to regard the man. "We need him able to talk. If you want to go vent your frustrations I'm sure you can use some of the other inmates for target practise." His tone clearly made the suggestion a dismissal.

"Yes, Prefect." The man growled sullenly and started off. He took the torch with him as he went, passing by the man at the back. In the moving light Janos saw him, a thinner man wearing a black robe over similar leather and metal armour. He had high, almost aristocratic features with a long nose to match the face. He was freshly shaven and his green eyes were placid, neutral, and even calmly serene. That by far the worst part. The other men might be excused for their brutality because of their anger.

But to this one, such hideous cruelty was routine and it bothered him not. He would casually order disfigurement, murder, and torture and, for such clear indifference, had to do so on a daily basis. The Prefect ran his gaze over the near broken body before him and then dismissively, he turned away. Leaving Janos helpless and trapped, crippled and tormented on the cold floor of some forgotten cell in what could only be the darkest hole in hell.

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**_"In this dank place where hope and life seemed taboo , time stretched out before me. It was impossible to tell how long I had been here. At least a month if I were in any state to properly judge. I doubt though that I had been forgotten by my captors. I was too important." _**

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Bound, shackled and gagged for days on end without being allowed to move, Janos slumped in the filth against the cold of the wall of his cell. The darkness was a nearly constant thing. Light was the enemy. Light mean the guard were coming, often when it was necessary to feed him. He was given only the smallest amongst of blood, just enough to keep alive. The process was humiliating and his jailors took a preserve delight in finding new and innovative ways to expand that humiliation. Human beings, Janos knew, could be very inventive if given the proper motivation.

And given what he knew of these humans, surrounded on enemies and trapped in a wasteland, they had very good motivations. Altruism and empathy however only went so far. Circumstances may have made these men cruel but that there was not denying that was what they were; sadistic, cruel, bitter and hate filled. It was clear that if he did not escape and soon, their purpose for him would be fulfilled and they would butcher him with about as emotion they displayed when killing livestock.

So he was forced to lay there in the filth and grime, not knowing what was happening beyond the curved walls of his dingy room. Was Raziel truly still alive? He had no way of knowing but if he was, then there was some hope. He did not know what form that hope would take now though. Circumstances had pushed them all beyond the sight of prophecy, far outside the sight of even the most gifted seer. If salvation for the Vampire race was to be achieved then they would have to find it on their own. The thought was less then comforting.

One day, impossible to say what day exactly in this perpetual abyss of pain and misery, the door to his cell opened with a loud rusty creaking. Janos looked up dimly. It was not his feeding time so to have visitors came as a startling and unnerving surprise. There were quite a lot of men this time. Perhaps over a dozen, it was hard to tell with the number of torches they were carrying blaring in his eyes so painfully.

All of them were obviously soldiers, all wearing in that same iron and leather blended armour. This group however looked somehow more official then the guardsmen he had seen before, their equipment and apparel kept in far better shape. They had crossbows strung across their backs and short blades strapped to the outer edge of their right leg. There was one at the back who even had a large canister strapped to his back. A hose connected it to a nozzle he was holding in both hands. Even in his weakened state, Janos recognised it as a flame thrower.

This was the first time he had seen one for himself though. They had not been invented yet during the era he was most familiar with, when the most advanced form of human weapon was a bow and arrow but as time passed, according to Vorador's description, the Human's science had increased to the point where their alchemic knowledge allowed for the creation of such things. Its presence did not alleviate any anxiety over the nature of this visit.

Their leader was a tall man in armour that was darker than the others, almost jet black. At his side he carried a broadsword, by now an antiquated and outdated weapon but it showed the strain of long use and the patient care of diligent upkeep. His face was bearded but the man hadn't bothered to style it. It was a ragged bristle tinged with grey in some places, indicating the man was perhaps entering his forties by now. Nevertheless he looked every bit the professional soldier. He came right up to Janos and looked down at him. His gaze was quizzical rather than loathing.

"Can it speak?" He asked, his voice gravelly. He seemed as if it took more breath then it really should to say the words.

"Yes, General, it can." A human off to one side replied and Janos flicked his gaze to the speaker, recognising the strange clinical figure of the one the guards had called the 'Prefect'.

"Then remove the gag." The General ordered with a curt not. To have the gag removed actually hurt more than leaving it in. His jaw muscles had not had much exercise in a long time and to close his mouth send a cringe of pain running down his pain which he could not suppress. His lips were cracked and his tongue was dry. It felt like his mouth was full of nothing but rotten rope strands and dust. He coughed hoarsely, throat straining for breath.

Some sort of round container was held to his lips and the smell of blood was instantly recognisable even to his dulled senses. Willing and even desperate for any nourishment, regardless of where it came from, Janos drank it down. He had swallowed perhaps three mouthfuls before his lips were forced firmly away from the beaker.

The General knelt before him, one arm draped across his armoured knee. His expression was detached but in an intense look in his eyes that spoke of some inner hidden hope. Clearly there was something he wanted.

"I have questions for you." He said, looking the Ancient Vampire in the eye. "You will answer them or you will die, is that understood?" Janos started right back at the man and knew that he meant it. Either he talked or they would kill him here and now.

"What do you want to know?" He asked. Even with some blood to moisten his throat and restore some strength, it was hardly enough to keep the weariness and pain out of his voice. The General ignored that and got right down the important things.

"Are you a Vampire?"

"Yes." An easy question to answer and certainly not what he was itching to know but it was a start to the interrogation.

"Are you of the lost Razielim? That is the only clan of your kind we do not regularly encounter." The name of course was derived from 'Raziel' but exactly what connection Raziel had had to these 'Razielim' Janos did not know. He shook his head.

"No. My people are the first. We are the originals." His reply caused something of a stir, all the humans looking around at each other with confused expressions. The General's look became even more intense. He seemed to go taut, his body clenched like a fist.

"Original Vampires?" He repeated and his breathless voice held that same tautness. "Explain."

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**_"Perhaps going over the details of the Ancient War between my people and the Hylden with a Human, telling him the basis for what was undoubtedly by now mythology amongst his kind, was unwise. Given the circumstance however, I did not believe I could afford to be vague on such direct questioning. But perhaps this might be turned to my advantage."_**

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The tale, even an abridged version, took some time to tell. One did not condense so much history into easily digestible pieces easily. He told them of his own people and their origin as a race totally separate from Mankind. He told them of the Hylden and their utter alien origin from Humanity. He told them of the Pillars, the Circle and finally of the curse itself and how it had brought down all of his once proud race. He did not know how much of what he told them they understood or even believed but all of them, the General especially, listened intently to every word he had to say. Not all the expressions around him however were curious. Others were plainly outraged.

"Blasphemy!" One such insulted man spat, his voice livid with rage. "He lies, sir! His words go against the holy scriptures." The General frowned and rose, half turning to give the man a flat stare for interrupting.

"Dmitri, I've warned you about keeping your religious opinions to yourself." Although his words were civil, his tone was not. The man shut his mouth and looked down at the floor, unable to meet his commander's gaze. The General turned back.

"I would hear more of this, Vampire." He said. "But if you're lying to me..."

"You will kill me." Janos finished.

"Slowly." The man affirmed and placed his hands on his hips."Now then... you say your people were destroyed. But we have seen more than just you in the skies as of late." That of course was understandable and easily explained.

"A small segment of my race survived through a method unknown to me." Janos said. "They are the Serioli Order." From the startled look's appearing on the expressions of some men around the room it was clear the name was not unknown to them.

"The Legendary forgers?" The General raised an eyebrow questioningly.

"Their traditions and name survived in your own race, albeit in tarnished form." Janos affirmed. The man paused with pursed lips, his pale blue eyes flicking this way and that as he contemplated this new intelligence.

"But you are not one of their group?" He asked after a long moment.

"No." There was another even longer pause.

"What is your name?" That was a question Janos had hoped he would not ask but realistically he supposed it was inevitable. Briefly he contemplated giving them a false name but that was a ruse that was easily discovered and he did not have the mental discipline to maintain it presently. Looking up into the General's face he told him. The reaction was expected. Clearly the passage of time had not faded the stigma of his old reputation.

"The devil of the mountains! Plague of Uschtenheim!" The one called Dmitri burst out, his face turning red. Seized in what could only be caused towering rage the man drew a dagger and lunged forward with the weapon aimed at the captive Vampire. The General, despite being older, acted with quick reflexes and grabbed the man by his armour. He hauled him back with an angry growl into the waiting restraining arms of his fellows.

"Just what do you think you are doing?!" He demanded, teeth bared.

"Janos Audron is the spawn of all Vampires! It was he who created them! He is the source! He must be killed, now!" Whatever hold of discipline had held his man in check had gone and he was ranting so fast his face had turned a discomforting shade of purple. The General growled.

"I need answers, not a corpse!" He said but Dmitri kept on struggling, even trying to reach for the dagger that another human had pried out of his grasp.

"He must be cleansed in the fires! The Demon must die so that we can show God our faith!" Finally this pushed the General past his last piece of patience and he turned from the ranting man to the other men.

"Take this fanatic outside to the whipping post." He said flatly. "Fifty lashes. If he dies, throw his corpse over the walls. Let the Rahabim have a meal."

"Yes, General Skelim." One of them said with a nod. Kicking and struggling to be freed, Dmitri was lead out of the cell. The sound of his protests echoing down the hallway outside. The General , or Skelim, as it seemed; stared after the insubordinate for a long time, then slowly he turned to look back at the bound captive. Strangely though his expression was amused.

"You look remarkable robust for one who was reported to have had their heart ripped out." He said and his jest caused some of the tension to ease in the room. The other humans, although not the fanatic their companion had been, had certainly been put on edge. Fingers were on sword hilts and crossbow triggers, eyes wild.

"It was restored to me." Janos said.

"Convenient." Skelim remarked with still one eyebrow raised. "And the other race, your enemies the...Hylden... you say?" He pronounced the name a little oddly, putting more emphasis on the 'Yl' then the 'D'. "How is it that they now plague us?" Janos pause for a moment to take the measure of the man who was questioning him. He seemed far more interested in learning something useful then in a history lesson and he sensed somehow that they had not yet come to the meat of their conversation. The General wanted a very specific piece of information. Until he was sure what it was, Janos decided the safest thing to do would be to keep answering questions.

"The Pillars." He began, taking a long deep breath to steady himself. The effort of talking for so long when before he had not been permitted a word was tiring. "Without the Pillars the binding decayed. The shackles upon their kind weakened and they were permitted to return." Skelim grunted at that, a disgusted sneer parting his lips.

"Yet another blight we have Kain to thank for." He muttered bitterly. "I don't suppose any peace agreement can be reached with them?" Now it was Janos' turn to sneer. The effort gave him a raking cough.

"I would not waste the effort." He advised dismissively. The Hylden he was sure would no more be interested in peace with the other races that lived in Nosgoth then the humans would be in peace with a plague of insect vermin which invaded their crops. Evidentially that was not what Skelim wanted to hear. He frowned deeply and folded his arms across his chest.

"What about your kind, these 'original Serioli'?" He asked bluntly and a complete silence feel at once, all the men looking towards him with varying degrees of shock and stunned amazement for the mere idea of an alliance with any sort of Vampire. As if he felt their gaze, Skelim turned to glare back at them savagely. "I didn't ask for any of your opinions."

Janos saw his opening. This General was looking for any advantage he could gain, any sort of backing that would help him in his military goals and it seemed by now he wasn't particular where it came from. Vampire or Hylden, whichever side offered the more pleasing and advantageous deal would be the one he allied with.

"They might consider it." He said slowly. "The Serioli are warriors and they too are isolated. They would welcome any alliance." That much was true and while the Serioli were apostates they were still kin, still fellow Vampires. Blood alone prompted him to make the offer in their name. It was hard to tell if the offer pleased Skelim. His face didn't change expression but there was a shrewd calculation in his eyes, as if he were already juggling several different possibilities in his mind.

"And what can you tell me of the other blue one?" When he asked that question, Janos was left taken aback in confusion. At the clearly nonplussed expression on the Ancient Vampire's face, Skelim elaborated; "Little more than a ghoul. He appeared somewhat over a year ago and ever since then the Clans have dwindled in number and power. There is even strong evidence to suggest that the Clan leaders themselves are all dead."

While Janos knew nothing of clans or clan leaders, there was only one being who could be described a blue ghoul. He nodded slowly.

"Yes I know of that one." He said in an equally slow voice. With this particular line of questioning he would have just as many questions as Skelim but he was not in a position to ask them.

"Who is he? Where does he come from?" The General demanded eagerly. "He helped my people save those taken by the Zephonim into the midst of their lair in the Cathedral. My people have begun to worship him like a heralded messiah. I need to know who he is." Janos risked a glance around at the other humans as they too looked eager for his reply to his question. This he realised, was the thing they really wanted to know. But here he ran in a problem. Surely he could not tell them everything he knew about Raziel. They would not believe him and that disbelief would quickly translate into his immediate execution.

"He is to be trusted." He told them instead. Skelim blinked and then frowned deeply.

"That's not the answer to the question I asked." He said.

"Yes it is." There was another long pause.

"And I can believe your assurance on that?"

"If not, why did you bother coming to ask me anything?" The General looked like he was about to angrily retort this but another Human entered the room, coming up to the angry man and saluting to gain his attention.

"General, the Council members have summoned you." He said formally.

"I'm busy!" Skelim snapped without turning around.

"It's urgent, sir." The messenger insisted. "The Rahabim are trying to get into our water supply again." Skelim emitted something that sounded very much like an infuriated dog growl as he half turned, glancing back and forth between the captive and the messenger. Then he looked at the Prefect.

"Make sure he's guarded and lucid enough to talk." He told the unsmiling clinical man. "I'll be back later." The Prefect bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement of the order.

"As you wish, sir."

The humans filed out but the one with the flame thrower was left behind when the Prefect gestured to him to remain. The man looked sullen but he did was instructed, standing on the far side of the room as far away from the captive Vampire as he could manage. He kept the nozzle of his weapon pointed at Janos and his back to the bolted door.

Janos wondered briefly if what he had told them would have consequences later. Realistically he knew he had had no choice but while he did not blame them for their faults, Human beings were not to be trusted. It was entirely possible, even quite likely, that they would in some way use what he had told them to advance themselves at the expense of the Vampires.

He glanced up at the man guarding him. The Human was deliberately not looking at him, keeping his eyes averted but his weapon at the ready. They hadn't bothered to replace his gag when they left so he was free to speak. Only what did one say to a Human under such circumstances? Perhaps it might be wiser to say nothing. However something told him he should speak. He had to learn the mind of these Humans, how they lived in this bizarre and harsh time.

"I have been asleep a long time." He said slowly, in a low tone to the solitary man. The human did not turn around. "The Vampires of this time are not as I remember them." The Human's eyes flicked to him briefly then away again. Silenced endured.

"No I don't suppose they would be." He eventually said, his voice echoing behind the mask of his helmet. "Tales say centuries ago they were Human in appearance but over time they changed into little more than animals."

Janos put his head back against the size of the wall. That blood had helped ease some of his aches but he was in desperate need of more, if for no other reason than to regenerate his wing feathers to allow him to fly again.

"You don't believe what I told your leader, do you?" He asked, closing his eyes for a moment to rest them. The man grunted and shifted inside his heavy armour, made all the most cumbersome by the gas cylinder on his back.

"What I believe, what any of his men believe, doesn't matter to General Skelim. All that's important is what we follow our orders." He still kept his face averted. "Personally, I don't care if you actually are the infamous Janos Audron, eater of sin and devourer of the new borns. If your information is useful you'll probably be kept alive. And if you lied I will incinerate you myself." If nothing else the blunt sentiment was at least an intelligent position to take, Janos found himself grudgingly admitting to himself.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door to the cell. The Human turned in surprise at the sound, clearly not expecting company.

"Who's there?" He demanded.

"A runner from the General." The voice behind the door replied. The Guard opened it to speak with the man outside. Janos couldn't see him from here but he seemed to be wearing a dark robe of some kind.

"What are you doing here? I was told nobody was to allowed into this cell until the General's return." The Human with the flamethrower stated gruffly.

"I have special orders from the General to question the Vampire while he's gone." The man in the robe said placating, rummaging in his clothes and coming out with what looked like a sheet of parchment. "Look right here. He wrote down his orders and the questions he wants asked." The Guard reached for the paper but as he did, something long and curved lanced out of the hooded man's sleeve. It tore through the paper, passed through the Guard's fingers like they were made of clay and when straight into his chest. The motion was fluid and graceful almost like a dance but accompanied by a sickening grizzly crunch. Blood sprayed out across the floor of the cell and Janos looked u in surprise to see the tip of a terrible looking hooked short sword emerging from the man's back.

The Guard managed only one gargling cry before he slide off the blade and fell to the floor with a muffled crash. The robed figure quickly moved to the dead man's side and relieved him of a set of keys which hung at his belt. Then he came over to Janos, working one of those keys into the shackles at his wrist. Janos watched in baffled astonishment as his bindings were undone. His arms fell freely to his sides and the aching muscle was both a relieve and a constant pain.

"You must move quickly, Vampire. Your escape will soon be noticed and I cannot guarantee your safety." The hooded man said in a low serious tone as he untied the ropes binding his legs and the shackles on his ankles, throwing them aside and allowing Janos to stretch himself out for the first time in what could only have been weeks. His entire body ached from the exertion after such forced inactivity but he welcomed it. The pain meant he was alive and that freedom waited just up ahead at the end of the dark tunnel.

He struggled to rise but found he was not quite up to it, his muscles stiff and unyielding. The robed man put his hands gently under his arms and lifted him up. Once he was back on his feet, Janos swayed but kept himself up straight. Struggling for breath from even that small exertion he turned to look at the hooded man.

"Why do you help me?" The Ancient Vampire asked in a breathless, baffled voice. The man reached under his hood and seemed to pull something up over his head underneath it, then he pulled the hood down. Now the man wore a strange leather mask which covered his entire head. It was painted with a grotesque looking design that only superficially resembled a face but was warped hideously into demonic features. All he could see of the man's real features were his brown eyes through the silts.

"I am a loyal servant of my Gods." He said in a reverent voice. "And my Mistress would see you delivered from this hellhole."


	3. Flight of the Sane

The corridors outside the cell were no cleaner or less dank. The air perhaps was a little fresher, but not by very much. The choking miasma of Human misery and unwashed filth still clung to everything. Even with his senses dulled by lack of blood, Janos could barely make out anything beyond the cloud of stagnant pain which wrapped around this place. It was suffocating.

His limbs stiff from disuse and confinement, Janos had to force himself to move. Every step, however, felt like he was wading up through a torrent of mud, his muscles rigid and unyielding like weathered rope. After he had gone no more than a few yards an unpleasant truth was made very clear. If he was discovered by the guards, he was in no condition to fight. Up ahead down the corridor, the Human who had freed him had taken point. He seemed to know his way around, going from corner to corner confidently but always pausing to make sure that the way was clear before proceeding. Once the man was certain their way was unguarded he would turn and beckon Janos to follow him with a wave of one arm.

-0-

**_"Perhaps it was unwise to trust the direction of a Human. While I did not harbour any rancour or bitterness towards their species, trusting any of them was something else entirely. Yet what choice did I have? To remain was death." _**

-0-

The need for blood, to feed, was a powerful thing that throbbed within. Now he was free to move, the instinct to hunt became quite palpable. That was part of the curse, of course, going hand in hand with the thirst. Turning their race into predators of Mankind. The younger Vampire generations, created after the trial success at passing on the bloodline to Vorador, found ingesting the blood of others tolerable, even stimulating. Janos did not.

The Human came to a corner, peering into the darkness around it. He froze then and held up a forestalling hand. Janos came to a dead stop, his body trembling in fatigue. It took rigid self control to force himself to keep still. From just up ahead he could hear the muffled clinking of armour and low gruff voices. He was too far away to make out what was being said, but it was clear there were perhaps three of them. There they waited, frozen still, simply listening. Then the guards moved on down the corridor away from them, the jingling clank of their armour growing fainter. Once he was sure they were gone his guide then hurried back to Janos.

"We must move more quickly." He said in a low, hushed voice, already muffled by the strange leather mask he wore.

"I cannot." Janos breathed in an equally low tone although in truth that was all he could manage and he could not have raised his voice even if he had wanted to. "I have been too long without blood."

The Human paused at this, the look in the eyes through the slits of his mask growing intense. Slowly then he drew back the sleeve of his robe to reveal his arm. It was heavily scarred with the healed evidence of repeated lacerations. To Janos' astonishment, the man drew a blade and began to purposely open his own skin with the curved edge. Bright red blood welled up at once and even in the stink of this terrible place its heavy aroma caused the Ancient Vampire's nostrils to flare involuntarily.

"Drink from me." The Man said in a deliberately calm, even reverent tone of voice. "Restore your strength from me."

Janos looked up at him and saw in the man's eyes the unmistakable zeal of religious fanaticism and devotion. Such a thing was not completely unknown to him. Vorador had kept Human servants to provide him with fresh blood when he needed it and such servants had been so devoted they would have voluntarily given up their blood, but there was something different about this offering. It was ritualistically done, as if the practice was routine.

However, Janos found that his body was suddenly reacting without his being aware of it. Before he even realized he was doing it, the blood was flowing down his throat from the offered limb. Nor did he have sufficient will to stop himself; he simply took the bizarre offering and drank deep. More blood than he had been allowed in weeks flowed and he took it all. As he drank he could feel new life and strength return to him. His muscles strengthened, becoming less stiff and awkward, and the various wounds inflicted on his body began to close and heal. Finally, however, he tore himself away, coughing from the blood on his lips. He did not want to kill the man from devouring too much, and if he did not restrain himself he was in danger of doing just that. The blood, however, had its effect and his body felt if not refreshed then invigorated, his senses and mind clearing of most of his fatigue.

The man drew his bleeding arm back and began to quickly wrap a bandage he produced around it to pack the wound.

"Is that sufficient?" He asked in a very controlled voice. Janos nodded, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.

"Yes..." He was not sure what else to say. The man nodded then and moved off, slipping back up the corridor as if nothing had happened. Reminding himself firmly of his present dangerous circumstances, Janos sealed his questions and confusion away. They would keep until he had leisure to examine them.

Ascending a flight of stairs and as the staircase curved around itself, Janos began to perceive that he had been held in a form of circular construction. Perhaps a tower, but he perceived they were underground. They ascended the levels one by one, pausing at intervals to avoid the guards. Each floor of this place was in a ring around a central shaft which itself had to be at least two hundred feet at its radius and was full of cells like the one he had left behind, each one stinking of those thrown in and left to rot, forgotten and alone. The urge to be freed from this cesspool only rose as he saw more of it. There was nothing he wanted more in that moment than to spread his wings and fly away. Although considering he had not yet had enough blood to regenerate his clipped feathers that would have taken some doing.

As his guide scouted on ahead once more, Janos began to wonder what had happened in the outside world during his imprisonment here. The last he had known of events, he had witnessed that Hylden women generate her own wings. Anything could have taken place in his absence. The need to know suddenly became as powerful as the need to be free.

Suddenly there was the unmistakable sound of gears churning from behind the walls, the clank of rusty chains and the scrape of metal on stone. The Human looked back sharply, but it was too late. Before Janos could come through the archway the man had already passed through, a thick portcullis came screeching down and blocked the way. It slammed into place, particles of rust falling all around. Despite being poorly maintained, the new barrier was still quite solid and unmovable, set in place like stone. Down the corridor which they had come Janos could hear the echoes of other barriers sliding in place, many going down all at once.

"Your escape must have been discovered." The Human remarked flatly from the other side of the barrier, coming up to the portcullis. He shook his head after a quick inspection, as if he had been contemplating some means of removing it and dismissed the idea. Janos quickly looked back the way he had come, half expecting to see guards approaching to recapture him. Or perhaps not even that. With an escape attempt foiled, they would be far more likely to consider him a dangerous liability and kill him on the spot.

"There must be a means of escape." He began, half to himself and mostly in desperation. The Human paused for a moment, his face unreadable behind his mask, and then nodded.

"There is an alternative way through one of the cells on the other side of this floor. It has a loose stone in its ceiling that will permit you to go up." He said quickly. "If you go quickly you can reach it before the Guards. I will meet you there." Without another word he turned and ran on down the corridor, leaving Janos trapped on the other side of the portcullis.

Alone now, Janos wondered if he was truly wise to trust this Human. A devoted servant of Vampire kind he might be, but what form did that dedication really take? For all he knew he was being rescued only to be later betrayed. It was impossible to know and the uncertainty was like a clenched fist of fear inside his chest.

However, with time of the essence and his options severely limited, he supposed he really did not have the luxury of distrust. If he could not trust this Human then he may as well turn around and go back to his cell. Quickly he turned and made his way down the corridor back the way he had come, listening intently and nervously for any sign of pursuers. Somewhere in the distance were the echoes of angry yells and the clanking of heavy boots.

The cell he was directed to was not hard to find. It was the only one with the door to it left wide open, its old and neglected hinges rusted in position. As he passed it, a grubby and nearly emaciated arm shot out of the window of the cell door to his right. A hand with broken nails grasped at him and he swung away quickly with a startled gasp. Beyond the bars of that window, a face looked out at him. The eyes bulged under a mat of dirty hair, wide but unfocused.

"Yes… Yes, angel!" The man cackled at him, his fingers arched like claws. "Come, angel, come kill me!" His voice was high-pitched and the inflections all over the place with no signs of rationality. "Come and kill me!" Janos stared at him in baffled confusion and horror.

"He's insane..." He said to himself, backing away a step.

"Of course he's insane." A voice said from behind him. Janos looked back sharply in surprise. Another face was looking at him from the window in the door of the opposite cell. It was just as dirty and hollow cheeked as the first, covered in grime and dirt. His eyes, though, were alert and the expression faintly amused.

"Don't you know what this place is? It's an asylum." The Human said. Janos stared at him.

"This is a hospital?" He asked incredulously. "A place of healing?" The man in the cell gave him a flat look.

"Do you think there are resources to spare on the insane when it's easier just to throw them into the dungeons along with the convicted?" He asked but then shook his head. "Flee. Get out while you can."

"You are sane?" Janos asked. The man turned away sharply from the window at that question.

"Me? No." He admitted. "I butchered my wife with a cleaver and I'm still not entirely sure why." Janos stood there in silence. The man snapped a savage glare back at him. "Don't look at me like that. We're not all chewing on the furniture crazy but we weren't just thrown in here at random either." Then he seemed to grow tired of the conversation and disappeared into the darkness of the cell. "Go!" The sharp command was like a whip and Janos moved past, purposely shoved the disturbing and haunting exchange as deep into his subconscious as he could make it go.

The cell was empty and was exactly as described. Sure enough on the far side from the door was a stone set in the ceiling which was loose, just being held in place by the pressure from the stones around it. One good push was all that was needed to heave it up and out of the way. The space it left was tight but just large enough to permit his passage through, albeit with a lot of undignified scrabbling.

The room above was some kind of storeroom, full of large crates, boxes, and barrels. The loose stone had been directly behind a large stack and cunningly concealed from immediate view. The room was dark but light came in from a crack under a door on the far side of the room. There was, however, no sign of his guide.

This hidden spot was no haven he could afford to wait in either. His would-be rescuer might well have been caught himself or killed. If the Guards were truly alerted to his escape they could eventually find him and there was no way out of this room but down. If he wanted to escape he had to go up.

Outside in the corridor, Janos found this new floor to be cleaner than those below. The floor was swept and the walls clear, lit at various intervals by glowing glass orbs in the ceiling and linked together by cables running back and forth down the corridor. Without the Hylden's technology to guide them, Janos had half-expected the Humans to regress to an earlier and less sophisticated science. That seemed not to be the case, for they had clearly now harnessed that strange power of electricity. What else had happened during the time he had spent in the Demon Realm to change the face of Nosgoth? He had to know. Still, this change in his environment seemed to signal that he was close to the outside and eventually escape.

Unfortunately this floor had many more guards than the ones below as well as others coming and going, making exploration a hazard. There were many of them standing watch over doorways and at the corners to see who was approaching from any direction. Janos, however, had one advantage over the Humans that would prove critical. They did not expect to see him here and Humans that did not expect to see something could be blind to it. His senses were far more acute than a Man's and so whenever someone came by, Janos found himself easily able to slip in and out of crevices where the shadows permitted him to remain concealed from view. Humans' natural inattentiveness to their surroundings did the rest. Crawling his way silently through this labyrinth of tunnels, being forced to slow and hide with his heart thumping in his ears every time anyone walked down the corridor was maddening. If he were Vorador or perhaps even Kain, he could bull his way through any opposition and leave piles of corpses in his wake. But he was not them. He did not like to kill if it was not necessary, nor did he have their casual skill for brutal violence. They could kill over and over and it would not cause them even the slightest qualm.

Thus he continued, going back and forth between corridors and various rooms as he navigated his way. These upper levels it seemed were an old maze-like mix between a barracks and a hospital, many beds lined up on the walls, stacks of weapons and alchemic apparatus alongside crates of various minerals and other substances for apothecary. It seemed this was the place where any actual healing was done in this hospital, for those who remained useful to the Human society while anyone too damaged was thrown down below to rot. The Guards were easy to identify by their leather and steel armour, but there were also others wearing white overalls and long leather gloves. Most of them seemed to be women but there were a few men. Many of them wore masks over their mouth and nose and had their hair tied back. These he supposed would be the healers, as he saw more than one looking over several injured lying in beds and working with the equipment to produce various poultices and other medicines. Despite their numbers, progressing through them moving via the shadows was not difficult. They were so wrapped up in their work they barely looked up and around.

Finally Janos came across a flight of stairs that led up to a large riveted brass door at the top. The wide slab of metal was badly tarnished and engraved with some obscure symbol that seemed to vaguely represent three towers before an arching semicircle. The origin and meaning of the symbol eluded him. Strangely, though, both the stairway and the door were completely unguarded and lit only by a single one of those glass orbs, 'light bulbs' he believed the Humans called them.

Fate was not going to hand him another chance like this again and the longer he waited the larger the risk of discovery became. Quickly he mounted the stairs and listened at the door. It had to be too thick as he could hear nothing through it. Unable to do anything else now, Janos took the risk and pushed the door open.

Beyond was a large hall with a towering arched and vaulted ceiling. The walls curved out to either side for some distance before meeting a vertical wall on the far end. Across from him was another door and banners hanging on either side of it, each one depicting that same odd symbol. A thin, red, heavily decorated carpet ran across the stone floor, linking the distance between the two doors. More of those light bulbs lit the room at regular intervals around the walls, highlighting a series of tarnished metal pipes which ran from seemingly random directions from the edges of the ceiling to a central point above where they gathered together and disappeared up into a hole. Occasionally puffs of visible white steam wafted out where the segments of the pipes did not fit quite so well together, giving the hall a humid atmosphere despite its size.

Unfortunately this was where Janos' luck ran out. The hall was not empty. Three men were standing off to one side looking over a parchment one of them was holding. Two of them were guards in that same leather and metal plated armour. One of them had a crossbow slung across his shoulder and an assortment of knives in pouches down each leg. He might very well have been that same man he had seen in the cells. The second had equipment far more intimidating on his back, the large barrel of a flamethrower with the nozzle hung out of the way. The third was a man he had seen before, that same man in the white robe who had overseen both the clipping of his wings and his interrogation. The Prefect of this terrible pit which tried to pass itself off as a place of healing.

In that same moment of recognition, the door Janos was pushing open gave a loud creak as it suddenly met unexpected resistance from its hinges. The sound was piercingly loud and echoed terribly in the hall. All three men turned to look at once at the unexpected interruption. Time seemed to freeze in that moment of startled recognition from both sides, dragged out so very long as Janos felt a sudden flurry of emotions pass through him; panic, fear, but also fury. It was a strange emotion, one he had not felt in some time. It ran through his veins like a poison.

The Prefect was quicker to react.

"The Vampire!" He cried, the calm demeanour he had displayed down in the cell gone in a flash now that one over whom he had control was no longer bound and helpless. His face contorted with surprise and indignation. He backed off past the other two, pushing them forward harshly although the two men were still staring at Janos, bewildered. "Kill it!"

"But the General said..." One of them started in confusion even though his crossbow was already out in his hands.

"I don't care, kill it!" The Prefect snapped at them and ushered them forward. The man holding the flamethrower shrugged indifferently and brought the nozzle of his weapon up.

Instincts which he had not used for centuries burned suddenly within the Ancient Vampire, mixing with the icy sting of fury in his veins. The combination proved explosive.

Janos had not always been a being of contemplation and scholarly pacifism. During the ancient War, all had been required to fight and he had done his duty. The skills he had learned from combat he had not put to use in a long time but they were still there, buried and dormant. Called to life once more, his body obeyed commands before he was quite sure he had given them.

His wings tucked against his back to make himself more streamlined, he sprinted forward, clearing the distance between them as the guard quickly brought his crossbow up to fire. Janos reached him first and knocked the weapon to one side, the bolt firing to clatter off a far wall. Swearing, the man staggered back, dropping the crossbow and reaching for a knife. That was when Janos flared out his wings. Clipped though they might be, there was still enough force in them to send the man flying backwards and across the floor.

The flamethrower came up swiftly and its hose opened, the air flickering as the heat began to boil out from its tip. Once again instinct saved him and his body obeyed those long dormant, trained commands. He dived forward, tucking his arms, legs, and wings into himself and rolled. The blast of flame roared through the space he had just been a moment ago and followed him, passing over the ground and leaving a blackened streak in its wake. Janos kept rolling for a short distance and then when he was poised he sprang forward and rammed himself into the man. If he had not been weakened the blow would have knocked the man over, but it was not up to the task. However, the heavy cylinder of combustible gasses on the man's back did the rest and he toppled backwards, the hose of his weapon arching up dangerously into the air. The torrent of flame lanced up like a fountain, raining hot embers down all around.

By now the first man was up and on his feet. Growling, he tore several knives from their pouches and flung them at Janos. The falling sparks of flame upset his aim and the knives flew wide, clattering on the floor just to the Ancient Vampire's right.

Janos maintained enough self-awareness to know that he was at a disadvantage here. The claws of the Vampiric offspring he had sired had become talons capable of puncturing through even the toughest armour, but his were as they were intended to be, merely a different configuration of fingers. Snatching a knife in each hand, Janos quickly dove at the man before he had time to draw any more. Even with instinct guiding him, the moment he felt the knives pierce the man's chest was sickening. He knew at once he had run the man's heart clean though, he did not need to look into the face of the corpse as it collapsed back down to the ground.

The man with the flamethrower hauled himself back to his feet unsteadily. Seeing the fate of his companion, he let out a bellow of rage and began forward, the nozzle of the weapon blaring outs its deadly fire. Janos swiftly turned but found the knife in the chest of the man he had killed was stuck, leaving him with only the one. The man advanced implacably, the fire from the hose coming forth in an unending torrent. Janos backed up several paces but not to retreat, to give himself better maneuvering room. He could not stay at a distance for he would be incinerated if he made a single mistake. He had to get in close where the device's fire would be just as much a danger to the wielder as the intended target. But the man would certainly know that too and was not simply going to let him run up inside such a protective radius. That might work to his advantage, though.

Grasping the hilt of the one knife tightly, Janos ducked low and made a run at the man. As predicted, the man turned the flame on him but Janos rolled to one side. For that split second he was out of the range of the flamethrower he brought his wings up. Firmly he arched them forward with all the force he could muster, a stabbing thrust. The man staggered, sent rolling backwards from that impact with the nozzle of his weapon blazing off harmlessly to one side. Janos did not waste the opportunity. The act made his stomach churn but he closed the distance between them and sank his remaining knife as hard as he could into the man's throat.

A fresh fountain of blood gushed up from the severed artery and Janos felt its heat on his skin. The ages of enforced instinct of the Dark Gift took over suddenly and he paused, the blood smell rising in his nostrils. The hunger was still within and for that single moment he was lost in its call.

Two crossbow bolts struck him in the left arm. Their impact knocked him from the bloodied corpse and across the floor. Stumbling, he collapsed to his knees, half down on one side. The shafts of the bolts protruded painfully from his flesh.

The Prefect was advancing on him. During the confusion of the melee he had recovered the discarded crossbow and the way he held it showed he had experience with this type of weapon. His eyes were like ice as he reloaded with a fresh clip in the crossbow's holster, lips drawn back over his teeth in a snarl.

"No inmate of this sanatorium has ever escaped. The first will not be on my watch." He spat, coming right up to Janos so that he could not possibly miss. "And especially not a filthy, deluded Vampire that thinks it's an angel!" The aim of the weapon would have carried the next bolt into Janos' forehead.

Then the Prefect suddenly stiffened, his entire body trembling. Janos looked up as the crossbow tumbled impotently from his hands. Blood was spreading across the man's chest from the protruding tip of a blade which had been stabbed through his chest. Then he was flung down to one side forcefully, smashing to the floor. As he did not make a sound it was likely he was dead before he stuck the floor.

Standing over the corpse was his rescuer, that same Human in the strange canvas mask. The blade he used was covered in blood, dripping it onto the floor. He was straining for breath as if he had had to run to get here, bloodstains old and new coated his robes in a telltale splatter. Janos was just grateful for the timely intervention.

"Come! These bodies will be found very quickly." The man said, bending to help the Ancient Vampire back up. Grunting, Janos reached over and forcibly removed the bolts from his arm. They did not come away cleanly but he could not risk them hampering him at this crucial moment.

The man led him to the far door and though it. Outside was the sky and distant behind the blackest clouds was the impotent glow of the moon. The sight burned in Janos' mind and made him momentarily blind to all else around him. Stuck in the dark so long, he had yearned for the sky again and even clouded and thick with smog as it was, it was a joyous thing to see. Instantly and instinctively his wings snapped out and they beat furiously, trying to burst him into that sky in the ultimate expression of freedom. When they did not so much as lift him off the ground reality came back in full flood.

"I cannot fly!" He hoarsely gasped, his shivering wings folded back in with a sudden stricken motion at their confirmed impotence. The man grabbed his good arm fiercely to recall his attention.

"That is not important, come!" With that he led the unresisting Vampire off down into a side passage. His attention blurred and then refocused, and finally Janos took proper stock of his surroundings.

Stone towers of golden brick rose up all around, rising so high it took him a moment to realize he was looking at a colossal encircling wall into which the buildings themselves had been constructed. The roofs of the buildings all around were a red tile and slanted harshly. Soaring rectangular watchtowers lanced up high into the sky at regular intervals around that wall, platforms at their tops facing out to give crossbowmen and grenadiers better vantage points to strike at attacking enemies. This place was a stronghold, he could see that instantly. Faintly he could also hear the low rolling slush of water from close by. Towering walls and moats could only mean this place had been designed and built to keep an army of Vampires at bay.

The interior of the massive city structure was honeycombed with bridges, interconnecting suspended passageways and an open pavilion. Here and there more towers stood, the strangest he had seen yet. They had a normal stone base, interwoven with many brass and iron pipes all feeding up into a huge orb made of metal which overshadowed the entire thing from above. It had the look of some colossal artificial mushroom.

The streets between the buildings were narrow and overhung with many pipes small and large all riveted together. Occasionally the shadows of the night were broken by the illumination from the flickering orbs of those light bulb devices hung over every other door. This closed-in, encircled fortJanos perceived at once was the last bastion of Humanity, all their hopes for the future bottled up and contained inside this one small spit of land which was likely less than a mile across.

-0-

**_"In the centuries of the decline of Nosgoth, this it seemed was the fate of Mankind. Locked up behind the walls of this citadel; the Human race dug in, trying to survive and wait out the horrors which beset them. Cut off and isolated, they merely waited to either be overwhelmed or quietly starve to death."_**

-0-

The air around him was thick with a miasma of hopelessness. It was so thick as to be nearly palpable to ordinary senses. Every stone around him told the same story of embittered, eroding hope and a climbing despair. It made him feel physically sick.

The man led him on through the thin streets intently with no pause, knowing precisely where he was going, or at least it seemed. There was nobody about during such hours of darkness but that would soon change once his escape from that terrible place had been fully realized. As such, Janos certainly hoped the Human knew where he was going.

Then his guide took him to a single unassuming door set in the side of a building that looked much the same as dozens of others they had passed. The only thing that set it apart was the sign. In Human rune script read the words 'Western Access to Cistern'. Quickly they went inside and then down a flight of stairs.

"Where are you taking me?" Janos demanded sharply. Being underground once more made every instinct within him urge him to turn around and not lose sight of the sky now that he had seen it again.

"To the Undercity and its Temple." His guide replied as they moved along a stone corridor in total darkness. As they progressed the sound of running water became stronger and, listening intently, Janos thought he could hear it running swiftly in pipes just behind the walls. Just a little farther and that noise became a loud roar as they entered a large circular chamber. They stood on a metal grate suspended perhaps fifty feet above a pool of churning water being poured into the chamber by pipes. Froth bubbled thickly on the churning surface. Light from some source flickered through the water, casting dabbled shadows over the slick walls.

"We are nearly there, Divinity." The man said, starting out along the metal grate. Janos looked up at him with confusion.

"Why do you call me that?" He asked. The Human paused and turned to look back at him. The chamber was too dark to see through the slits in his mask to his eyes, so in the gloom he had the look of ghoul.

"Because you are a Vampire. You are a God of this world." He said simply as if stating plain fact, but there was a tinge of reverence just under the surface. "A Dark God to whom the blood of Man is offered in sacrifice. Your bloodlines have shown Man their true place, their rightful place. We are the herd. You are the shepherd."

Janos stood there staring at him, the words resonating through his mind like the tolling of some colossal, ominous bell.

"We are not gods." The Ancient Vampire began in a quiet but intense voice. "Some would claim superiority over Mankind perhaps, but we are not divinities. To suggest we are divinities is blasphemy to the one true God." He shook his head. "Is that the legacy of my kind in this era? Sacrilege?" His guide studied him, silent for a moment, then turned away.

"The Priestess will explain it to you." He declared and without another word began to walk away into the dark. Soon he was out of sight. Janos stood there for a long time watching him. His word in the end meant nothing. He could not go back. There was only one way to go. Forward.

His face set, he began after his rescuer, renewed doubt plaguing his mind.


	4. Bloody Seduction

Perhaps with so little land to secure and defend against constant Vampire attack, the options for expanding their city had been severely limited. Unable to build outward, the Humans had opted instead to build up and down. The towers and walls of their Citadel loomed high above into the smog choked sky, and far below vaulted chambers descended underground into hidden caves and recesses which had been undisturbed for centuries.

The darkness was near perpetual, broken only by the single torch his guide carried. It was a woefully inadequate flame, assaulted by the dampness of the surrounding chamber. Even Janos' eyes had trouble seeing through the gloom and he had little choice but to follow and hope for the best. The man, though, carried on confidently and without pause.

The air down here in the dark was cold and wet but not stale and stagnant like the sanatorium had been. Somewhere throughout this underground complex were openings to the outside to allow the free passage of cycling air. It certainly wasn't fresh but it made this underground series of chambers and passages far more tolerable. It also prevented fungi and phosphorescent moss from growing in the dark dampness.

The walls they passed were plain stone for the most part, but perhaps every two hundred yards they would pass by a relief image set high and painstakingly engraved and each one depicting a bearded angelic figure in various poses and scenes. Each one was grisly, though, as the figure was shown holding severed Vampire heads or impaling Vampires on stakes. Janos finally understood with a tinge of revulsion what he was looking at when he saw this winged figure holding up the heart of a Vampire whose corpse lay behind his assassin, a creature that looked to be some warped, bat-like being. Centuries on and the tale of his own murder at the hands of the Sarafan had survived, albeit corrupted.

Winding their way through the darkness, Janos became aware of the bridges they were crossing; each one a long stone pathway with a metal railing, below which was an endlessly flowing and large aqueduct. It was too dark to see the water, but he could hear it. For Human life, water was essential, but it also provided a natural and potent deterrent against Vampire attack. The amount of water flowing through so many aqueducts and drains seemed to suggest that the Humans had tapped into an underground river and diverted its source to fill the moats and small lakes they relied on so much.

However, soon they passed over a second cistern, this one larger than the first but showing the signs of years of neglect. Stones were crumbling all around and the metal railings and pipes were rusty and brittle. Janos happened to be looking down as they passed by. There was just enough light in this chamber for him to see the waters below and it did not take him long to spot the moving shapes just below the surface. At first he thought them large, dark-dwelling fish, but when he caught sight of the unmistakable shapes of arms and legs he stopped in his tracks and just stared. They were like nothing he had ever seen before.

His guide carried on for a short way across the rusty mesh walkway they were on. When the Human realised he wasn't being followed he stopped and turned, following Janos' line of sight down towards the shapes in the dark. They stood there in silence for a long while afterwards just watching them.

"What are they?" Janos finally asked, breaking the silence. His guide lifted his arm and held his torch out over the edge, its flickering light falling on the water below. The bodies below were Human in shape but sharp fins broke the surface now and then, attached to the wrists and ankles. Down the back running from the blunt head there was also a strange snake-like hood which gave them a streamlined appearance, but far less Human. Red eyes, gleaming malignantly, peered up from the gloom at them whenever one of them turned. They were hungry, greedy eyes filled with an unmistakable, cruel gluttony.

"Vampires." The man said, shaking his head slightly. Janos looked up at him sharply, then just as quickly back down at the waters.

"That is not possible." He breathed in a harsh raspy voice, near choked with disbelief. His guide, however, did not appear overly disturbed as he was at the tremendous concept this suggestion provoked. His gaze remained fixed on the creatures below as if entertained in some way by their sluggish movements through the dark water.

"Rahabim, once a mighty Clan." The man said as if Janos had not spoken, his gaze still fixed on the slowly circling figures in the flowing waters below. "Sooner or later they'll amass enough numbers and courage to swim up through the pipes and attack the Citadel in force." He said it quite calmly with a diffident shrug. "There won't be much that will be able to stop them when they do."

Janos barely heard him. His gaze was now fully directed upon the forms swimming down below, his face twisted into a maze of incredulous wonder.

"Vampires that have overcome an aspect of the Curse." He mused out loud. The mere idea was so alien to him that for quite some time it was near impossible for him to process it, never mind extrapolate. His guide just shrugged again.

"Perhaps." He conceded. "But the trade-off, as I understand, is that they cannot tolerate even weak sunlight." He turned away then, interest apparently lost. "I would not be jealous of them for their gift, if it required living for all eternity in the deep and the dark." With that he started off again, his torch taking the light with it.

Janos stayed there in the shadows, simply staring down at the creatures. The Hylden's 'Dark Gift' had been specifically designed by them to be as psychologically damaging to their enemies as it possibly could. Aversion to sunlight to limit their freedom in flight, weakness to water so they might never truly sample the land's bounty, sterility so that their bloodline would die out within one generation and leave the Pillars without Guardians to tend them, a hunger for the blood of Man so that the two species might never truly unite, and lastly of course the immortality so as to deny them the purification of the Wheel of Fate. They had been steadfast, immutable facts of life, unchangeable and unalterable. So terrible had been the finality of those facts that many of his kindred had committed suicide.

Now here, thousands upon thousands of years after those tragic deaths, the mutated offspring of their noble bloodline had achieved what they had not. The implications of that were staggering and left Janos unable to think of what to do with the revelation. If one aspect of the curse could be overcome, could not them all? The mere idea left him shaken down to his foundations. He needed time to think through the ramifications of such things. Forcing himself to turn away, he followed after his guide back into the dark.

The Undercity was a labyrinth in the truest sense of the word, twisting and winding back and forth seemingly at random with no logical structure in mind. At one point he was sure his guide was leading him around in a huge circle when soon he saw the crumbled stone and rusty support structures and realised that quite a large segment of this underground hidden city was structurally unsound. They were being forced to detour around dangerously unstable places, making the journey seem much longer than it really was.

The foundations of the Citadel were so old and neglected Janos did not imagine it would be long, perhaps a decade or two, before they crumbled altogether and the entire Citadel collapsed in on itself. What would happen to Mankind then when their walls fell and their moats spilled over? Would the Vampires beyond, desperate for blood, overwhelm them and render the Human race extinct in their frenzy? Then with no Human blood left in all of Nosgoth, what in turn would become of them? It was not an inviting prospect. This era in which he had awoken, despite outwardly appearing desolate, seemed rich with possibilities. There was potential here for either a restoration he had never imagined possible or the danger of absolute oblivion and it was a very fine line between the two. It could fall either way.

But what was he to do about it? That was indeed the question. One thing was certain, though. Time and time again he had been a prisoner. First of death itself, then the Hylden for many centuries, and then by Mankind. He would not be so again. If he was to die in this strange, alien, and dangerous era, then it would be as a free Vampire on his own terms. The desire to return to his own kind, though, was very strong. The Serioli were heretics but they were still kin and good people in their hearts. If it meant getting amongst his own kind after so long an absence from their familiar faces then he would gladly forgive their flaws.

"We are here." His guide said unexpectedly, interrupting his thoughts. Janos looked up sharply and peered through the darkness.

Looming above them was a series of large stone steps which in turn led up to a large vaulted entranceway, barred by a large iron door. Engraved into that door, however, was a strange arching, angular symbol which Janos did not recognise at first. Then he frowned in remembrance. When he had awoken back to full sanity he had been with the Serioli in their new Mountain Stronghold and they had been wearing drapes across their shoulders with that same symbol on them.

"What is this place?" He asked with suspicion even as his guide began up those steps towards the door.

"This is the Temple." The man said simply. "A holy place." As he placed his hands on the door and pushed it open an unmistakable aroma of blood and death, old and new wafted out. It was a bellowing cloud that, while mostly above the limited senses of a mere Human being, was near overpowering for a Vampire. The intensity of it caused Janos to take an involuntary step backwards and raise a hand over his nose, his body responding to the smell of blood in ways that even after so long he found distasteful.

This was no sanctified holy ground. Quite the reverse. From the mere smell alone he knew its purpose. He had once visited Vorador's manor house deep in the bowels of the Black Forest and there had been a room there he had thoroughly disapproved of, a room where Vorador had kept many Humans in captivity to be bled whenever he felt hungry. It had been his 'pantry' and it had reeked with this exact same stench. With nowhere else to go, however, Janos began up the steps and rigidly kept the imposed predatory instincts within him under control.

The Temple itself was comprised of several smaller chambers with interconnected corridors which opened out in a large central room. A long vaulted corridor led from the door directly to this central chamber, the floor stone polished smooth and the walls draped with elaborate tapestries. Braziers burned at every corner, casting the entire expanse of this place in a flickering dappled orange light and the air with a welcoming heat. It did, however, make the carnal smell of this place even more palatable.

The central chamber was obviously a place of worship. In its centre was a raised dais upon which stood a polished statue of an imperial-looking figure with long hair and a billowing banner. His hands rested upon the hilt of a depiction of the Soul Reaver. The years had certainly changed Kain's looks since he had last beheld him, but there was no mistaking those features, nor the manner in which he had been captured in chiselled stone.

Before the statue was a large silver basin, engraved with many arcane symbols and decorations around its thick rim and even as he entered the chamber and could see, Janos smelt the blood contained within it. Hot fresh blood, recently cupped from a living Human. His mouth ached from his need to feed and replenish his energies.

There were six platforms set into the floor in a circle around the central dais and each one had a symbol engraved on it. These symbols he did not recognise at all. One was a jagged looking thing which looked like it had been made with claws. Another looked like a tapering tail of a fish. One, however, caught his eye, a curving symbol which tapered off to a point at the bottom. Now, that he had seen before, he was certain, but for the moment he could not recall from where.

"Mistress, he is here." His guide called out as they entered, his voice echoing in the high ceilinged chamber.

"You have done well." A distinctly feminine voice replied and looking up, Janos saw a figure standing beside the basin, half turned away from them, but in the light of the braziers the curved outlines of a woman were immediately obvious. "You have my gratitude for this service. Now leave us."

Without another word at that dismissal, his guide bowed low and departed back the way he had come. Janos looked after him for a moment, then turned back to the woman.

She was slowly approaching him, the long, flowing pale robes she wore swishing as her hips swayed. Humans and Vampires shared very many common characteristics that he was not blind to their shared features of beauty, and this woman was exceptionally beautiful. Her body was lush and vibrant and her skin an unblemished creamy peach with the complexion of marble. Over her head she wore a sash that hid her hair if she had any, but her face was perfect. In fact she almost had the look of a romanticised statue of a real person which the sculptor had removed all imperfections from. Full lips and bright eyes of the deepest blue. Her eye-catching appearance caused him to pause but in that moment he saw the curved dagger by her side, still encrusted with blood in a few spots. Her feet were in soft sandals that made the barest of noises on the stone floor.

"Welcome, Janos Audron; Sire and Father of all of the Dark Gods." She said, coming right up to him in a tone of greeting. "I bid you welcome to this holy place." Seeing his expression of cautious reserve she gently laughed. "Do not be concerned. This place is safe. All are friends here."

Janos maintained his ground, his expression taut.

"I am...grateful for your assistance." He said, deciding that it was best to maintain at least a fiction of cordiality. Really his options were limited. The woman smiled faintly.

"It is my holy duty." She said and dipped her head. "I am Ronove, Priestess of Divine Kain's holy Temple." At that Janos blinked and looked up at the statue again, frowning at it as he realised his mistake. That was no statue of an imperial conqueror. Placed so in the Temple, it was a pagan depiction of a deity.

"Kain's Temple?" He asked harshly and could not keep the disapproval from his voice. Ronove took the unspoken rebuke without rancour, merely stepping to one side and ushering him towards the dais.

"As I understand, you were absent for many centuries so I appreciate that you do not comprehend much of what has occurred in that time." She said. "Please, though. Before we begin questions and explanations, you must be hungry."

The basin was filled with blood right to the brim. The sweet aroma of it so close made him shiver. His body still ached from what had been done to it so when the Priestess handed him a goblet he willingly dipped it into that font of nourishment and drank deep. The blood flowing down his throat was exactly what his body craved and each gulp seemed to banish a different pain and ache. He could almost feel his flesh creep and churn as, prompted by the abundance of energy, it restored lost muscle and sinew.

His wings, though, did not replenish the clipped feathers. The structure of feathers was more complex and would take additional time and feedings to restore. Thankfully, though, this feeding had done much to return him to his usual robust health.

Ronove was watching him intently, her eyes alight with an intensity that when he noticed it was unnerving. Realising her scrutiny had been noticed she turned her gaze away.

"Forgive my observing. You are unlike any Vampire I have ever seen before." Janos paused to wipe his lips clean with the back of his hand.

"My kind are the originals." He explained. "We passed on our blood to Men to create what you would recognise as a Vampire." He was not quite prepared for the hungry look in her eyes when he said that.

"So the legends of you are at least partly true." She seemed to purr. "What knowledge we have of you comes down to us through word of mouth, passed from one generation to the next and much garbled because of it, I am sure. You are a distant fable, like the stories of the mysterious and exiled Vorador."

"Or Divine Kain?" Janos asked with deliberate irony. The priestess did not seem deterred by the observation. Slowly she gestured up with one hand towards the statue above them, a hand which he noticed had crisscrossing scars from many cuts over the palm.

"Kain showed us the true role of Man in the cosmic order." She said reverently. "We are the cattle and your kind, the Vampires, are the overlords and our shepherds." Her smouldering eyes fell hotly on him. "Perhaps then you will let me tell of divine Kain and his holy message."

-0-

**_"What she told me was scarcely to be believed. It was a story of a Nosgoth I barely recognised. Vampires the ruling class rather than the downtrodden and despised? Ruling from a throne that had once been the Pillars themselves? Kain, who once sought dominion had finally succeeded and brought about the Empire he had once dreamed of. But that idealistic Vampire utopia had been ultimately short-lived, for the so-called mighty Clans had begun to change, devolving as the centuries passed into hideous monsters. That I could not accept. That our vaunted bloodline would produce such deformities was impossible."_**

-0-

Turelim. Dumahim. Zephonim. Rahabim. Melchiahim. And then, of course, Razielim. Each had their own symbol around the chamber and the Priestess pointed out each one. Now Janos knew where he had seen that symbol before. It had been upside down and twinned but it had been on the cowl Raziel had worn across his mouth and shoulders. The implications of all of this left his mind reeling as he tried to absorb it.

Once Ronove finished her tale there was a long moment of silence as Janos stared first at the statue of Kain, then at the Razielim symbol on the floor. His expression twisted in a dark intensity.

"Each clan is named after their leader and patriarch?" He asked quietly.

"That is so."

"Then tell me of Raziel." He said. "What is his tale in Kain's Empire?" To him, the name Raziel had been something written in prophecy and nothing more. Here it had firm context and meaning in the world far beyond a prediction of future events.

"A sad story." Ronove sighed, sensing nothing of his feelings. "For Raziel was the greatest amongst Kain's sons and his clan the highest, demigods in their own right. But alas it was not to last. For Raziel dared commit the ultimate blasphemy and attempt to surpass Lord Kain in power. For such a transgression our God tore the wings from his back and cast him into the Abyss, the Lake of the Dead. After that, leaderless and outcast, the Razielim themselves were fair game. The other clans fell upon them like wolves and slaughtered them all down to the last fledgling. But such is the price of apostasy."

Janos endured in silence for another long moment. So then he knew at last why Raziel had appeared the way he had when he had first seen him, reduced to a near skeleton with whatever remained of wings hanging from his back. But for this to have happened during this era, long after he had talked with him made little sense. How could one have a conversation with a being that would not be born yet for centuries? The rules of time had surely been bent somewhere.

"Of course it was not long after that that the corruption began to truly tell." The Priestess continued darkly. "The Turelim went first. In the beginning they thought their alterations merely marked them as blessed and superior but all too soon they perceived that their minds were degenerating as much as their bodies developed. One by one the clans began to mutate and change. Some became feral dogs. Others-insect like things that scuttle in the darkness. Some even overcame the weakness of water and retreated into the deep." Her smile turned crooked. "And so you see my dilemma."

Janos frowned and looked up at her. "Dilemma?" He repeated. The Priestess slowly turned and gestured towards the statue of Kain, almost imploring.

"In the normal order of things, for my dutiful service I would have been elevated and permitted to take my place amongst the clans. Whichever deemed me worthy." She said.

"As a Vampire?" Even though he had seen it before Janos still found the concept of a Human wanting to be a Vampire to be very bizarre.

"Indeed." Ronove nodded lightly but her face was marred by a distasteful frown. "But I have no desire to descend into a scuttling, mindless animal. Immortality offered or not." After a long pause she gave him an almost seductive sidelong look, her eyes burning into him. "You, on the other hand, offer me a unique alternative."

Janos blinked in incomprehension, eyebrows raised in puzzlement.

"I do not understand." He admitted. Quickly she turned to him, her entire body seemed to throb with her intense urgency, her sudden naked avarice startlingly apparent.

"You are Janos Audron!" Her voice seemed to throb with a strange desire. "The legendary sire of ancient days! Though it is blasphemy to say, you predate Kain himself! There are even old tales that say you created Vorador, the butcher of the circle."

"That is true." Janos said, still not quite sure what she was getting at. His confusion was dispelled a moment later, though, when she said;

"Then I want what you gave him. I want the true immortality that circumstance denied me." There was a stark moment of stunned silence as he just stared at her, face contorting almost comically into several different expressions. First disbelief, then baffled confusion, and finally settling on anger.

"You do not know what you are asking." He said in a hoarse, nearly choked whisper, turning away from her sharply.

"Yes I do." Her voice maintained that same eager intensity and, now that he knew what she wanted, to hear it made him feel quite sick. He kept his back to her.

"What I gave to Vorador was a trust, a guardianship of an old and noble bloodline." He was shivering with indignation. "He had served for years to earn the trust but neither was he selected merely for this. He was worthy." He shook his head once more. "The Gift is not a bartered article of trade."

He was taken quite firmly then by one arm and forcibly turned around. Ronove's expression was naked with fury, all pretence of hospitality gone in a flash. Suddenly her beauty did not entice, it repelled. It was a mask for the ugly greed beneath.

"I will put it bluntly." Her voice was like steel and her grip just as strong, her nails digging painfully into his skin. "Either you give me what I want...or I leave you to the tender mercies of General Skelim."

Janos stared at her, his face taut with anxiety.

-0-

**_"I ought to have rejected her right then and there. I ought to have cast her offer of assistance and protection aside and taken my chances. I ought to have simply left and tried to find Vorador again, to get back to the safety of my own kind. I ought to have done all these things and more. But I didn't." _**

-0-

When the Priestess of their Temple and their 'guest' entered her private chamber and locked the door behind him, the acolytes and underlings were left sorely confused. They knew what she wanted of course and why exactly this Vampire had been brought to the Temple. But by ancient tradition such ceremonies of accession to Vampire status were conducted out in the open so that all could see the glory being bestowed on the initiate.

To have it conducted behind closed doors was a break in a practise that had been set down since the beginning of their order, since the beginning to the reign of holy Kain himself. They said nothing, even amongst themselves for it was not their place to question or spread gossip about a superior. Especially not the Priestess who decided who offered not only their blood but their lives to satisfy the hunger of their gods. That did not prevent them from having private opinions and to cast a glance now and then at the locked door as time began to drag by.

One hour passed. Then two. Then it stretched to three and the looks at the door became more and more curious and inquisitive. No one was brave enough to actually go up and put their ear to the door to listen to what was going on but it certainly crossed a few minds. When the door finally opened, though, it came so unexpectedly that several turned sharply to look in their surprise.

Janos came out alone and shut the door behind him. His wings were tucked tightly to his back and fresh blood dribbled from his mouth to splatter down his chest, dripping from his arms to leave a trail of bright red droplets on the stone floor. He walked slowly away and the expression on his face was filled with a stark, naked contempt and self-loathing, his eyes haunted by grief. They stared after him but did nothing to bar his way, stepping aside to allow him to pass in utter silence. Once he was past them he paused briefly.

"She will be in a state of deep sleep for three days." His voice cracked at the end, a harsh, raspy whisper as if he were parched. "On the evening of the third day she will rise. Have fresh blood ready for her immediately or she will attack you." Without another word of explanation or instruction he filed away from them.

He did not go far, however. Merely into the next corridor, to an old metal bench on one side of the wall. There he slumped and put his head in his hands, his wings curling around him like a protective shield.

-0-

**_"Sheltered from my enemies by those I barely knew, away from those who might offer me any real safety, I was alone in a time I did not understand and cut off from all I had once known and held dear."_**

-0-

He clasped his hands and talons together over his face as tight as he could, so they would not be seen to shake.

-0-

**_"Perhaps I might be able to justify my actions by my doing what was necessary in order to survive. But I could not hide the truth from myself. I was scared and now that I had found at least some small safe haven, I was loath to give it up. Prompted by fear I had clearly just made a horrible mistake. In shame I contemplated the nature of my actions."_**

-0-


End file.
